What is Orchestral Evolution?

A brand new commissioned score for a revolutionary ‘pop up orchestra’….

A piece of music for an infinitely sized orchestra of all instruments and abilities. The piece has been written by The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra in conjunction with Soundstorm, the Music Education Hub for Bournemouth and Poole. The project is for young people of a huge range of ages from schools in and around Bournemouth – Funded through support from Arts Council England.

Students from every type of school ensemble traditional or unusual, from orchestras to jazz bands, an after school ukulele club to the in house rock band are all invited to learn the piece with me and a visiting member of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, in a morning or afternoon workshop. (27th Feb: AM or PM 28th Feb: AM or PM 1st March: AM or PM 2nd March: AM or PM)

Further content will be made available for free online, to help students practice and further develop their playing.

All of the groups will then be invited to join a mass pop up orchestra hosted by one of the participating schools ; to perform alongside some of this country’s finest players as part of ‘The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra’ at a one off inspirational concert. Interested?..get in touch by email contact@chriswoodsgroove.co.uk or direct to Soundstorm Rachel.Sene@Bournemouth.gov.uk

The Project was born out of an idea to inspire students, irrespective of their interest in classical or contemporary ensembles, to help all students engage within a modern orchestral setting culminating in a shared finale. A focus on making the orchestra, and orchestral thinking inclusive and exciting. Soundstorm approached the CWGO to bring these aims to life.

Over the coming weeks as I compose the piece I will be writing about my processes, successes, failures and more in this blog. So sign up now to watch it grow.

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Why?

As many of you may know who are reading this, in septmember of 2016 I launched a project entitled ‘guitar revolution’. A piece of music for an infinite number of guitars, all ages and abilities. You can find out more here.

After an oversubscribed launch at the london olympia we went on to tour the pop guitar orchestra project across the uk. Bringing together hundreds of guitarists of all ages to perform together. It was an inspirational process. From two angles it has to be one of the most satisfying and exciting things I have done as a musician and composer…and has inspired this next project.

Firstly because of the social element; the idea of bringing together people of all ages and abilities was idyllic in concept and idyllic in practice. To work with people who may not spend every moment of their life playing an instrument is seriously refreshing. There is a genuine passion that hasn’t succumbed to the gigging fatigue that many of us ‘professional’s’ have. There is an almost more pure love for the music, and this pure passion comes out in the playing regardless of physical skill.

Secondly the process was a compositional conundrum. And a compositional challenge is one that feeds creative thinking. In short, composing for a mix of abilities is a challenge. Having boundaries to keep within, though, is often really constructive. I had to compose to be prepared for huge unknowns (how many would turn up to the pop up orchestra) and crucially I had to compose something that was simple enough to be played by the most beginner player and crucially simple enough and intuitive enough to have room to be an expressive performance.

So here I am again in a new compositional scenario, with similar challenges but also very exciting new ones…here’s what Im facing with Orchestral Evolution

1.Composing for all abilities.

In this project whilst it is only open to school children, it is not for one specific age or ability. So within the the parts there must be room for all abilities. And crucially we want it to be an enriching experience for all, so there also needs to be value in it for even the most accomplished player.

2.Composing for an unknown orchestra (unknown instrumentation)

This time, its not just guitars. We are making a truly modern orchestra welcoming all instruments. But it is a pop-up orchestra so until the day of the workshops I wont know what Im dealing with. Do we have ten violins? three bassoons and a hundred ukuleles? or… well, ultimately it could be anything. So I need to categorise the instruments in a non-traditional orchestral way.

Over the coming weeks, as I compose the piece I will be blogging about the processes and experiences. Ill be sharing audio clips and maybe even a video or two too.